CHENNAI: Residents of Arumbakkam and MMDA colony had to pay Rs 60 for a litre of milk and more than Rs 100 for a kilogram of tomatoes during the heavy rains that flooded their areas last week.
Even newspapers were sold for Rs 10 and for the buyers this was their only connection to the outside world. But residents said their worst experience was living with no electricity, and fear of snakes.
Sreenivasan Raghu, a resident of the colony, told to this website's newspaper that he had not gone home since Thursday as on returning home that day police told him it was too dangerous to go further down the road. Since then he has been living in the office and had to even bought new clothes.
But he was more worried about his family who were marooned in MMDA colony and who might even be running out of money.
On Monday morning, the water in some places was only one feet. Though accessibility improved, residents recounted stories of how they were fleeced of their money for buying essentials.
“The local bodies and the temples in the area cooked food and gave it to all in the area. So you can imagine how the prohibitive prices affected the people in the area,” he added.
Even government officials tried to encash on the opportunity as some TNEB officials demanded money to resume power supply. “Rs 200 was paid to a TNEB staffer to resume power supply on Sunday, but within few hours a TV caught fire in the area and the fire and rescue service personnel arrived to douse it,’’ said an engineer Senthil Kumar.